The new and distinct Brunnera macrophylla ‘Looking Glass’, hereinafter also referred to as ‘Looking Glass’ and ‘the Plant,’ is a new and unique sport of the cultivar Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 13,859. The Plant has been asexually propagated by careful tissue culture propagation of the shoot tips, at the same nursery in Zeeland, Mich. Tissue culture has produced plants identical to the originally discovered sport, and maintains those unique characteristics in subsequent generations.
Brunnera macrophylla (Adams) Johnst. is a hardy, herbaceous, sub-alpine perennial native to eastern Asia, western Caucasus and Mediterranean Europe. It has many common names, among them: Alkanet, Siberian Bugloss, and Forget-me-not.
Brunnera ‘Looking Glass’ was discovered as a single, non-induced sport in a batch of tissue culture propagated plants of Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’ in the fall of 2000 at a nursery in Zeeland, Mich. The Plant was grown to maturity and evaluated regularly at the same nursery. Two years later the Plant was propagated in test tubes using normal shoot tip tissue culture techniques at the nursery in Zeeland, Mich. Root initiation from shoots occurs in two to three weeks. Crops finish off at 15 cm tall and 20 cm wide in 3″ containers in about five months of greenhouse conditions, and maintain their unique characteristics. The Plant flowers naturally in the spring following receipt of short days and long nights from fall growth.